By Jennifer Horan

Introducing Celebrity Edge – Video

First there were cantilevered whirlpools (on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas) and cantilevered glass promenade walks (on Princess Cruises’ Royal Princess).

Now Celebrity Cruises is upping the ante with a 90-ton platform the size of a tennis court that will be cantilevered over the side of its newest class of ship, which will debut in late 2018 with the launch of Celebrity Edge.

As if that weren’t enough, the platform — called the Magic Carpet — will be designed so that it can be repositioned to four different deck heights, ranging in use from a tender boarding platform on Deck 2 to the Deck 16 venue for “Dinner on the Edge,” a 90-seat alternative restaurant that will open in time for sunset meals.

Those plans and others for Edge class were revealed this week by Celebrity President Lisa Lutoff-Perlo and her boss Richard Fain, chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., which owns Celebrity.

It has been five years since the last new Celebrity ship, Celebrity Reflection, made its debut and more than a decade since Celebrity’s five-ship Solstice class was on the drawing boards, so Celebrity has lots of improvements in store!